Interlude: Work

Window facing an ill-kept front yard

Plums on the tree heavy with nectar

Prayers to summon the destroying angel

Moon stuttering in the sky like film stuck in a projector

       -- The Mountain Goats, “Tallahasse”

What kind of work is this

The scrimshaw idols

Stacked on the shelf,

Popcorn shards

Littering the floor,

Long legs and loafers

Halved by white socks,

Spanish moss dipping

Into the frame like

Water stains

Don’t I know enough

Already to distinguish

The boats curving

Along the river’s arc

From the sad man

Leaning, arms

Crossed, against his

Typewriter’s keys

Or the chapped-lip boy

Clutching his dog

From the dry

burnished field

With its shadows

Stretched out

Behind them

So the garden is brittle,

Almost dust,

Peach and dogwood

A shamble of wire,

Pulse extinguished

To a dull scrape

Of stick against sky,

And why is it

Each season is quick

To append what’s next

To its every inflection

And a single night

Casts about for its

Own synonym,

Yes, what kind of work

Speaks the wrong name

Over and over,

Calls the father a man,

His son a boy,

The field behind his house

A field and doesn’t

Ever say precisely how

He loves them

What kind of work

Is this